


Camp Anywhere

by maplemood



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Middle School, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Marci POV, Marci-centric, Mostly plotless, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow To Update, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 07:09:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10354914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplemood/pseuds/maplemood
Summary: When they hopped off the bus, like lambs to the slaughter, everyone else seemed to think that they were in for the time of their lives.Or, the Summer Camp AU absolutely no one asked for.





	1. Rafts

Marci Stahl is not a snob.

…Well, okay. Maybe she is. But this time she’s not going to feel bad about it, because, okay, her parents used to have souls, or at least standards; they used to take her to the Outer Banks for vacation, once even Martha’s Vineyard—just the three of them together. And those vacations made up for the months and months of doing her homework alone (not that she ever needed help, but it would have been _nice_ ) and falling asleep before they got home. They made up for the microwaved pasta, the boring babysitters, the plays and mock debates that only those boring babysitters ever showed up to. They made up for _everything_.

She knows that money’s tight now, really tight—God, she’s not stupid—but she could have stayed with them. A summer in Dad’s office, knocking around on the spinning chair and listening to his sighs and huffs and not-now-Marci-s couldn’t be worse than this. A crappy summer camp full of crappy people. Like, one of the girls literally tracked dog crap into their cabin, then snapped at Marci like she was the idiot for pointing it out.

 _Breathe, Marci_. That’s what Mom would say. Maybe. She’s not a cuddly, chatty kind of mom, and Marci’s never had a good imagination. She’s better with facts. Like the fact that there’s dog crap on the floor and someone—who won’t be her—had better clean it up.

 _Breathe_. Someone needs to hold this cabin together.

When they hopped off the bus, like lambs to the slaughter, everyone else seemed to think that they were in for the time of their lives. Marci might have believed it if the CAMP KETOCTIN sign wasn’t spelled out in actual twigs. And if the bus hadn’t almost pancaked some old guy all over the tarmac, but apparently that old guy lived on the property next door and faced down the bus every year just to be contrary, so whatever.

A counselor whose name tag read VANESSA herded them all into a circle to spill their guts. Well, nicknames and favorite colors, but Marci didn’t feel like sharing even that much. Luckily Vanessa went alphabetically.

First was Frank. On the bus he’d sworn that he’d only been held back once. He was the only seventh grade guy whose voice had cracked, and his favorite color was green. Malcolm liked all colors, like it was so hard, God, just pick one. Jess liked blue and purple and went out of her way to roll her suitcase over Marci’s foot.

Matt was blind. The collective _crap_ settled over everyone like a blanket, but either he wasn’t born blind or he was just a good liar. He said “Red,” without batting an eyelash.

Ellie was short for Elektra, which she preferred, and surprise! Her favorite color was red too. Right after her came Franklin, and no, he didn’t prefer Franklin, or Frank either.

“Call me Foggy,” he’d said on the bus, rooting in his backpack before digging out a squashed baloney sandwich. “Want to share?”

Marci was stuck behind him only because he and the blind kid had nabbed the best seats. He’d been pretending he wasn’t staring at her since pickup. “That has mayo on it.”

“So no?”

“ _No_.”

“It’s from my uncle’s store. He sells artisanal meats.”

“Oh, I bet,” said Marci. “Artisanal baloney.” She sounded even nastier than she meant to. Nasty enough that nobody tried talking to her for the rest of the ride. Except for the bus driver, but she wasn’t counting “Sit _down_ , young lady!” as conversation….

“…Sweetie?” Vanessa was staring at her, pen tapping against her clipboard.

Marci stretched on a smile. “Marci’s fine,” she said. “I like pink.”

“My first roommate in college was called Marci. It’s a lovely name.”

For a second, Marci’s smile stretched into something genuine. For a second, things were okay. Not good, but not awful. Then another one of the senior counselors stood up.

The whole time they’d been doing icebreakers this guy was slouched over in a saggy camping chair. As soon as he straightened up, Marci saw why. He was built like a circus strongman. When he started forward the other counselors parted like the Red Sea.

 _He’s coming for me_ , Marci thought, heart dropping to somewhere below her guts, because that would be just her luck, picked out and yelled at on the first day, probably lifted up and crushed between his palms or something, because this guy was huge and _why would someone like this work at a summer camp?_ The bus driver probably blabbed. What a b—

He stopped two feet away from Jess. She’d been picking her nails with the corkscrewy attachment on her pocket knife, like there wasn’t an actual nail file attachment (three guesses on who tracked dog poop around Marci’s bunk!). Now she tried to hide the knife in her closed palm.

“What?”

She met his eyes head on. Even Frank looked like he couldn’t believe her guts.

The counselor’s name tag read WILSON in all-too-neat capitals, as if it were typed, not scrawled in marker. He held out his hand.

Jess huffed, blew her bangs out of her eyes. “I just want nice nails,” she said. “Whatever.”

Which, okay, Marci can agree on nice nails being important, but important enough to bring the wrath of the Hulk, or whoever this guy is, down on them all? Not okay. So very not okay.

And after Jess dropped the pocket knife into Wilson’s outstretched palm, Vanessa cleared her throat and said, “We sent you a list of banned items in each of your packets. Did you read it?”

Marci thought of her iPad and curling iron and nodded. So did everyone else.

Wilson pocketed (hah) the knife and stepped back.

“It’s very important that you follow it.” His voice creeped Marci out. Too low, mechanical-sounding like one of those freaky fortune-teller robots. _I predict that your summer will suck!_ “To the letter.”

‘To the letter.’ See? Who said things like that, besides that villain in a _Nancy Drew_ book? Everyone nodded like their lives depended on it.

Vanessa sighed. “Okay. We’ll have to look through your bag.”

Which is how Marci ended up with a squeaky bunk under a roof that looks ready to cave in and crush them all to death, curling-iron-and-iPad-less.

The iPad was a birthday gift from her Aunt Julia, pink monogramed case and all. She imagines Wilson’s huge paws sweating all over it and grits her teeth.

“They took my toenail clippers.” Karen, the storky girl who’s barely said a word since Frank called her “ma’am” says. (“I thought she looked like a counselor!”—Really? Karen is wearing a T-shirt and cargo shorts, but is he brain dead or something?) “I’m not going to survive.”

“Yeah, why’re they so interested in our nails?” Marci says right before the door bangs open. Elektra breezes in, already decked out in a black two piece.

“They’re taking us down to the lake,” she says. “Come on!”

Marci’s own two piece is hot pink, which Mom says washes her out, but whatever, Marci loves it and she’s not trying to impress anyone, anyway. When she reaches the lake Foggy and Matt are already bouncing on a huge inflatable raft a couple feet out.

“Should you be doing that?” Marci asks. “Since you’re blind?”

Instead of answering, Matt springs a double backflip.

“Whatever.” Let him snap his spine and end up paralyzed, too. It’s not like she cares.

Foggy, meanwhile, keeps bouncing and stares at her. When Marci glares back he smiles and yells, “Rejoice!”

“What?”

“I remember where I remember you from!”

Since when does he remember her? Marci doesn’t remember him.

“Mrs. Cardenas.” Foggy bounces up. “First grade.” He lands back on the raft with a puff.

And then—crap, oh crap—she does remember. Mrs. Cardenas. The lady with glasses and an accent who used to pick her up from school. She had a Virgin Mary statue in her yard and babysat a bunch of other neighborhood kids—

_Crap!_

Foggy bounces up, smiling at Marci like they’ll go right back to sharing juice boxes, watching _The Muppet Movie_ , and discussing how many kittens they’ll buy once they’re grown up. But she’s just remembered that he existed. She’s not in the mood.

Instead, Marci smiles right back and chirps, “Oh yeah! Foggy Bear!”

Matt laughs so hard he falls off the raft, and Wilson and another counselor slosh in after him. Marci climbs onto the dock. She’s about to grab her towel and head back to the cabin, no matter what the counselors say, when Foggy calls her back.

“Hey!” He’s blushing from his forehead to his ankles. “Bet you can’t jump from there to here.”

Marci eyes the space between the dock and the raft. She absolutely can.

She backs up. Foggy smiles.

At least he has guts.

“Watch me,” Marci says, and takes off running.  


	2. Audition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I got the dialogue right; Wilson in particular can be tricky to do.

The play will be on their last day of camp—you know, the final hurdle they all have to clear before escaping Purgatory. Every camper “must participate in some capacity”, according to Wilson (God, what’s _wrong_ with him? Does he always have to sound like he’s barfing up a thesaurus?). He and Vanessa bribed everyone into reading lines—they’ll insist they didn’t, but, come on, they held the readings right before lunch. Nobody said no because nobody wanted to miss assemble-your-own-pizza day, least of all Marci. She makes a mean Hawaiian.

(“Marci! I didn’t know you had it in you!”

“Shut up, Foggy.”

“I mean, you and your parents always seemed like plain-cheese types.”

“You don’t even remember my parents.”

“Sure I do.”

“They changed.”

He’d snorted. “Maybe you changed. But people like them? Never.”)

Anyway. It isn’t like their readings mattered in the end, because from the look of the cast list Wilson just sat down and picked names out of a hat. The play is _Snow White and Rose Red_ —a fairy tale about twin sisters and a talking bear. It’s not like it needs to be any weirder.

Here’s the list:

 **Snow White** —Jessica Jones (Sure, she looks the part, but everyone who actually listened to Jess grumbling out her lines knows that there’s no Snow White in her—it’s like casting Marci as Mother Theresa.)

 **Rose Red** —Karen Page (Marci would have picked Elektra.)

 **Their Mother** —Elektra Natchios (But she’ll be better as the mother. Obviously! Elektra’s just the nicest, most maternal human being on the planet!)

 **Bear/Prince #1** —Matthew Murdock (He’ll fall off the stage.)

 **Prince #2** —Frank Castle (His reading was pretty much one extended grunt.)

 **Wizard** —Franklin Nelson (In the actual story, the evil wizard is an evil dwarf. Marci guesses that Vanessa and Wilson don’t want to offend anyone, but Foggy’s the shortest guy in the cast—an evil dwarf wizard.)

And what about Marci, who’s performed in not one, but two school plays? Marci, who’s no expert, but at least knows her way around a stage?

Marci gets to be a rose bush.

Not even the red rose bush. Malcolm’s playing the red rose bush. Marci’s the white one.

They’re other bit parts. Jess’s bunkmate Trish is the narrator, and a boy named Carl who’d rather be called Luke is playing a fish. But they all have lines. In Luke’s case, just one, but a line is a line. Marci and Malcolm have nothing.

“This is ridiculous. I played Glinda in _The Wizard of Oz_.”

Wilson stares deep into the depths of his bowl and sighs. Tuesdays are assemble-your-own-pizza day at Camp Ketoctin; Wednesdays are make-your-own-fruit-salad-day. Except a bowl full of nothing but soggy cantaloupe chunks _is not a fruit salad, Wilson_. Seriously. Can the man get nothing right?

“Yes, so you’ve told me.” He sighs again. “Repeatedly.”

“I’m just saying.” Okay, maybe she’s coming on too strong. Maybe she’s been calling home every evening and her parents have yet to pick up or call back. But they might if they heard that Marci was playing something actually sentient. Maybe. Probably not.

The Stahls aren’t a touchy-feely kind of family. Never have been.

The Stahls can be downright cold.

Anyway.

“I’m just saying,” Marci says again, “I can handle more. So can Malcolm.”

Sure, he’s all _I’ve never been on stage before, Marci! I’m pretty sure I’d forget my lines, Marci!_ She’s not buying it. Just look at his face. If Foggy’s what her Aunt Julia calls a character actor, Malcolm is definite leading man material.

Really, it would be selfish of her not to fight for him.

“The cast has already been decided,” says Wilson. He points to the copy tacked to the mess hall bulletin board, probably hoping that seeing it in print for the billionth time will shut her up.

Marci tries smiling. It doesn’t stick. “I’m not asking you to change the cast. Could we just get, maybe, some _lines_? A fish is getting lines.”

“Miss Stahl—”

“My name’s Marci.”

“I have no doubt that you could memorize the lines for any part you wanted. But when it comes to acting…” Wilson trails off.

Marci waits.

He spears a piece of cantaloupe. “Some people are just better at being themselves.”

+

“I agree with him,” says Foggy.

Marci whacks him with her bowl.

“Ouch! Take it as a compliment.” Foggy scoops raspberries onto his mountain of grapes. “He’s saying you’ve got character.”

“Too much character,” she grumbles. The pineapple rings look canned.

“Since when is that a bad thing?” He’s been shifting from foot to foot for the past couple of minutes. Suddenly Foggy sets down his tray and steps out of the line.

“I really need to pee,” he says. “Can you go through the rest of the line with Matt? Just, like, tell him which fruit is which?”

Marci eyes Matt. Somehow he looks like he’s eyeing her back. He might be blind, but his stare is chilly.

Foggy groans. “Come on, guys. I’m at emergency levels here.”

“Fine,” says Matt.

“Whatever,” says Marci.

She watches Matt slide the trays along. Foggy’s bowl is tottering. His is mostly empty.

“Strawberries are coming up.”

“Are they organic?”

Marci peers into the tray. “I don’t think so. Too big.”

Matt shakes his head. “I can taste the pesticides.”

Two minutes later, after settling for a banana and some blueberries, he turns to her and says, “Foggy likes you.”

 _Great._ “No shit, Sherlock,” Marci snaps, but quietly. Swearing isn’t allowed at Camp Ketoctin, and no one wants a repeat of what they’ve already dubbed the Jessica Incident.

“So you don’t like him.” A question that isn’t a question at all. It makes Marci want to avoid his not-stare, which just pisses her off more. What does she have to feel bad about? Nothing.

“We used to be friends,” she says.

“I know,” says Matt. “You could at least be nice to him.”

They’re at the end of the line. Marci leaves him there, and if he needs someone to guide him back to his table, too bad, that’s what counselors are for. That’s what his stupid dinky cane is for.

She _is_ nice to Foggy.

Well. She’s not _mean_ to him.

Tables are assigned by cabin, so Marci plonks down with the rest of Daisy Cabin. (The girls’ cabins are Daisy and Morning Glory, the boys’ are Elk and Badger. It’s as tacky as it’s sexist; Marci can’t decide which is worse.)

“I think they’re sweet,” Karen’s saying. Jess, who’s sitting across from her, pretends to jam her fingers down her throat.  

“Who?” Marci asks, not that she cares. She just needs to get her mind off Matt’s glare, and, even worse, Foggy’s smile.

“Vanessa and Wilson.” Karen all but whispers. “They’re like Beauty and the Beast.”

Yes. This’ll do nicely.

“They’re exactly like Beauty and the Beast,” Marci says, biting into a strawberry. “Because they’ll never work out.”

“Um, Beauty and the Beast did work out.” Karen sneaks a glance over her shoulder. Vanessa’s just got Matt back to his table and is sliding in next to Wilson. He smiles at her; it almost makes him look human.

“Yeah, well, Beauty was human and the beast was some kind of lion-man-wolf-caribou. They’re completely incompatible.”

Jessica jumps in. “So you’re saying that beautiful women never get together with weird fat guys?”

He was right. These strawberries do taste like pesticide. Or plastic. Maybe both. Marci swallows, face twisting. “Hardly ever.”

“Guess that rules out you and Foggy.” Jess’s smile is all vinegar.

“He’s not fat,” Marci snaps, without thinking.

Jess’s smile only widens.

“And we’re not together.”

Too late.

Elektra, who’s wearing a smile as wide as Jess’s, just not as nasty, pokes Marci in the side. “Here he comes.”

Yep. Sprinting out of the boy’s room like he’s late to a date with his fruit salad. Or Matt. Marci doesn’t care which. Just don’t—

He waves. Not at Karen, or Jess, or Elektra.

What’s she supposed to do? She’s _not_ mean.

Marci waves back.

“I don’t think he’s fat, either,” says Karen. Her foot nudges Marci’s under the table. “He’s cute. And really nice.”

Jess starts humming “Tale as Old as Time” not-quite-under her breath.

Marci stabs into another strawberry and thinks about lines for rose bushes. Not about Foggy. Not about the time at Mrs. Cardenas’s when they grabbed some Kool Aid packets and poured them down each other’s throats like pixie sticks. Or the time they swapped shirts after she jumped into the pool with all her clothes on and didn’t want her mom to find out.

_Here. My mom won’t care._

_You sure?_

_Positive._

Focus, Marci.

Rose bushes. Think about lines for rose bushes.


	3. Rastlin’

“You _idiot_!” Karen screeches, thrashing to find her footing in the deeper water. “You _moron_ , I wasn’t ready to jump!”

Frank shrugs. “You were takin’ too long,” he snaps.

Karen’s long, wet braid flicks behind her shoulder with a slap. “I’m going to _kill_ you!”

“Yeah, sure,” Frank scoffs, oblivious to Marci shuffling up behind him. Or almost oblivious. His head whips around when she plants her hand on his shoulder.

“What’re you doing?”

She smiles sweetly. With all her teeth. “You’re taking too long.”

Frank hits the water like the block of concrete they’ve all agreed his brains are made of. Karen splashes over, ready to dunk him as soon as he bobs back up—at least until the counselor on lifeguard duty breaks it up with a shrill whistle.

“No horseplay!” When it comes to rules, Mitch is as big a stickler as Wilson.

Foggy cheers. “I declare Marci Queen of the Raft!”

Honestly. She waved at him once. That doesn’t mean they’re suddenly best friends again. Marci whirls around. “Can you not?”

Foggy’s face splits into a goofy, jack-o’-lantern grin—he knows he’s annoying her, the jerk—and he bounces on his toes. “Not what?”

“Yell all the time! I dare you to use your inside voice for fifteen seconds.”

“I mean, I would, Marci. Really, I would.” Foggy’s grin widens. “But we’re outside.”

Instead of screaming herself, Marci takes a deep breath, because she is smart and mature and not a child anymore, unlike a certain other twelve-year-old who insists on going by a nickname that sounds like a weather report. She steps back, jostling him out of the way, and, after taking a running start, cannonballs into the lake.

+

“Hey, Marci! Get over here!” Claire, one of the girls from Morning Glory Cabin, yells.

“We need one more person for Marco Polo,” she explains as soon as Marci paddles over. “Plus, Luke won’t be It.”

“‘Cause I’m always the one yelling ‘Marco’!” He grumbles. “Just for once I want to be one of the Polos, okay?”

Marci can see why. Luke’s the only boy at camp taller than Frank, even though he’s two years younger. (Elektra, the kind of girl who can coax just about anything out of a guy, told them that Frank, who’s almost fourteen, is actually behind by two grades. He blames it on switching school six times in four years.) He’s also big. Not chunky like Foggy— _big_. Solid and already kind of buff. Luke isn’t built for speed. He’ll be easy to sidestep and outswim.

“Okay,” she says. “I can be It.”

Jess butts in. “Not a chance. I’m It.”

Marci rolls her eyes. “Since when?”

“Since two seconds ago.”

“What’s your _problem_?”

“I don’t like you,” says Jess, as if this should be obvious.

Marci rolls her eyes harder.

“First round Jess’s It,” Claire decides. “Second round is Marci’s turn. Third—”

“Not a chance,” says Luke.

Soon enough Marci’s glad that Claire let Luke off the hook; he’s much faster than he looks. _Much_. They all dart away from Jessica, first yelling “Polo!” at the top of their lungs and then, as she starts to thin out the herd, almost whispering it. Once it’s Marci’s turn things get bad. She barely catches anyone for, like, ten minutes, which is bizarre because Marco Polo isn’t even that hard; it’s just a dumb game and you know what? They’re really all too old for it.

“You’re just saying that because your reflexes suck.” Jessica smirks.

“Shut up.” Marci splashes around, ready to paddle back to the raft. Then she stops.

“Foggy?”

“Present!” he bawls.

“What the heck are you doing?”

“Rastlin’!”

“They’re defending Karen’s honor,” Trish, who’s floating past with her arms slung over the world’s purplest pool noodle, informs her.

“Looks fun.” Luke sounds envious.

Jessica snorts. “You just want a girl to climb on top of _your_ shoulders.”

They all watch as Foggy totters while Karen, sitting on his shoulders, grapples with Danny, who’s sitting on Frank’s shoulders.

“You’re going down!” Marci hears Karen hiss.

“You can’t unseat me!” Danny crows. “I’m the Immortal Iron Fist!”

Luke snickers. “Who?” he yells.

“He plays D&D.” Trish’s noodle bobs past them again. This time she’s sharing it with Matt. Blind or not, Foggy’s friend somehow always ends up next to the prettiest girls.

“He told me it was his character in his last campaign,” Matt says. “Whatever that is.”

“Nice try. I bet you play D&T too,” Marci snips.

He flushes. “It’s D&D.”

“Exactly.”

Another whistle screeches across the water. “What did I say about horseplay?”

“Come on, Mitch!” Karen pleads. “It’s totally safe!”

“Totally,” Danny agrees, seconds before Karen leans over (so fast that Foggy, already overbalanced, almost bonks foreheads with Frank), grabs hold of both his ears, and pulls.

God. What idiots.

But it does look kind of fun.

And Karen is sitting on Foggy’s shoulders.

Not that Marci cares about Karen sitting on Foggy’s shoulders.

“Totally safe my a—uh, butt,” Mitch grumbles. When Marci looks over, though, he’s clambering down from his perch on the dorky green lifeguard chair. “Whatever. My time’s up. I’ll let Wilson handle you monsters.”

The entire lake groans.

“Already?”

“Come back, man!”

“We love you, Mitch!” Foggy shouts.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll believe that when I see it!” Mitch shouts back.

As the Marco Polo group breaks apart, Marci, keeping one eye on the lakeshore, where Mitch is still waiting, sloshes over to Foggy. Karen’s just clambered off his shoulders and shot off into the water after Frank. But Danny still looks up for a fight.

“Hey,” she taps Foggy’s shoulder. “How about a rematch?”

His face splits into that same stupid grin. “Wilson’ll be here in like, three minutes.”

“We can beat him in two. Hey, Luke!”

“What?”

“Let Danny get on your shoulders. We’re doing round two.”

She wasn’t jealous of Karen, Marci thinks as Foggy bends his knees so she can jump onto his back. Not even a little bit. It just looked like fun, okay? Fun, and they get to piss off Wilson. Two birds with one stone.

“Marci?” Foggy grips her ankles. “I take back every time I ever said you were allergic to joy.”

Marci huffs. “You better.” She cuffs the top of his head.

“Ow! You know, on further thought—”

But Marci’s not listening to him anymore. She lifts her head to fix her eyes on Danny. Then she smiles with all her teeth.

Danny smiles back. “ _Charge_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, when I added the "Slow To Update" tag, I wasn't joking. Mitch, by the way, is Mitchell Ellison. Assume he's 10-20 years younger in this universe and working one of the most chaotic summer jobs ever.


End file.
